Happy Halloween

All three girls chose characters from "Doctor Who".  Sabrina dressed up as the 10th Doctor (played by David Tennant), Lizzie dressed up at Rose Tyler (the 9th and 10th Doctor's companion), and Kate dressed up as a Dalek (the nemesis of The Doctor).
Sabrina was very concerned that the 10th Doctor has brown hair, and she really does not.  So I promised to get some brown hair spray for her hair.  Unfortunately the brown turned out burgundy!  So I added some black.  (Spoiler alert: the sprays stained her hair and she had pink streaks in her hair for 6 weeks!)
In this pic Kate was tacking some stuff on her costume after wearing it to school and before going Trick or Treating.
Also note the sonic screwdriver :)

School parade:

The 5th and 6th grade performs The Thriller every year after the costume parade.  Kate memorized the dance really well so she got to be front and center.  It's very funny watching a dalek do the Thriller.

After school I drove the girls to daddy's office.

The office was thoroughly decorated, including black lights.

the teenage boy across the street enjoys playing the part of a child-teasing zombie.  Sabrina finally decided the candy was worth the obvious trap.

then the 3 girls together made a plan.  Sabrina played the part of the distraction while the other girls grabbed the loot.

top right: the loot was totally worth it!
I moved the big recliner from the living room to the front porch where I sat with my computer.  I turned on the Phantom of the Opera and passed out candy from under my heated blanket.
I spent all afternoon getting dressed up.  I took a shower AND did my hair AND put on makeup.  I'm pretty sure nobody recognized me.

Skipping back to the office, the Salem City civic trick-or-treating was in the parking lot outside Daddy's office, so we went around there too.  Then the girls left notes and drawings on the boards at the office as usual.

See?  I told you Sabrina's hair was tinted pink afterward.  She can totally pull it off.

Snowbird

Here comes the photo overload from our trip to Snowbird again this year.  It happened to be a couple of days before Michael's birthday so I arranged a little surprise for him.

Aunt Jenny and Aunt Janice came with us this year.

When we first arrived it was raining and some of the attractions were closed.  Fortunately the rain let up pretty quickly, and everything was open by the time we were done with lunch.

The weather was very pleasant (once the rain stopped) and we got away with very little sunburn.

Sabrina mostly liked to climb up high enough to let go and repel back down.  She wasn't overly concerned about the climbing, she just liked coming back down.

The wildflowers at the top of the mountain were beautiful!

We ended the day with dinner with the company (This was a work party) at Brick Oven.  An impressive amount of pizza was ordered.

This picture seemed to end the day pretty perfectly.  All the youngests with their parents various smartphones keeping busy while the grown ups finished their meal.

Ears

Yup.  Ears.

Fascinating, no?

Well, Kate got a pair of earrings for Christmas along with the promise that she could get her ears pierced.  So guess what we did today?  Yup.  Ears.

Kate chose a pretty pair of birthstone earrings (ruby for July) that came with a matching necklace.  The earring and necklace stones are cut in a tiny butterfly shape.  Super cute.

So first she got her necklace on.  She was very excited and VERY nervous.

When we got there another girl was getting her ears pierced, so Kate got to see how the process went (even though we'd already talked it through thoroughly many times since the time she asked if she could have it done.)  Apparently Kate was their third ear piercing in a row this afternoon!  Popular activity I guess.  Ears, ya know.

I had told her that if she said that she didnt' want it done at any point that we'd stop and try again in a year or so.  She was DETERMINED to make it through.

 But look at this little face!  Doesn't that just break your heart?  I swear by the end I was closer to crying than she was.  Mostly because she looked too grown up.

They had two people there so they were able to do both ears at the same time.  Phew!  That made it less stressful for everyone.

But still plenty stressful.

In the end she was delighted.  She declared it didn't hurt much at all (by tonight she'd exaggerated it so far she was practically equating it to a warm sea breeze in a hammock).  Grandma ran into us at the store just as we were finished up.  Kate was excited to show off her new EARS.

Cute!

Lizzie and Sabrina were there too.  Lizzie said she would wait until she is at least 16 before she wants to get her ears pierced.  I told them they could wait as long as they wanted -- even never!  Sabrina changed her mind several times.  She finally settled on 28.  I had to record this for (if/) when they change their minds ;)

On a NON-EAR topic:

We stopped by Daddy's office (he's working this week but had last week off.  We had to show him Kate's EARS, ya know.) and the girls set to their favorite activity of covering his white board with drawings.  

They stuck with a theme of Santa + Snowman.

The amusing part of this one is that little red thing in front of the snow man.  

It's a gun.

The actual story is this: the gun is a squirt gun.  It is filled with food coloring.  That's why the snowman is different colors.  If you could see more closely you'd see a little green coloring leaking out the back of the squirt gun.  Cause that's what squirt guns do, ya know.  Leak.  

It still made me laugh.  :)

(I also like how they declared "DO NOT ERASE" over their drawings.  That usually would last until the next  time the space is needed for actual WORK related stuff.  Fortunately for them (I guess?) this board is on its way out, so it just might endure!)  

Denver, Colorado

For the first time in a decade, Michael and I went on a little vacation with just the two of us.  Technically I don't know that the one 10 years ago qualifies since Kate was there in-utero and kept me close to the saltine crackers... which means that our last all-alone vacation was our honeymoon.
True, Michael did have to do a training meeting for a few hours one morning since it was technically a business trip, but we'll gloss over that fact.
We spent 3 days, 3 nights in Denver.  The girls got to have a sleepover at grandma's house and a sleepover at their aunts' house one night and they had a great time.  Fortunately that all went well (especially considering that my mom had cataract surgery the same day we were leaving!).  Since we've never been on a family vacation, much less a "couple" vacation, we started feeling guilty about the fun we were having when we kept seeing things the girls would have enjoyed.  So we were really ready to come home at the end of it.
Here's a brief (ha ha!  as if I'm ever "brief") rundown on our trip:

 See that itty bitty pretzel?  Salt Lake City in one opening, Denver in the other.  Such a clever pretzel :P

Sweeping Generalizations:
* It is required that drivers shall drive at least 15 mph under the speed limit except in construction zones.  In construction zones drivers shall accelerate to at least 15 mph over the posted limit.
* There shall be a minimum of 1 King Sooper grocery store per square mile.  Starbucks density shall not be any less than 5 per square mile.  Starbucks and King Sooper may coincide.
* Specifications that parking spaces are limited to compact vehicles only are to be taken as mere suggestions.  As long as at least one tire is within the painted lines, you're good.  Good luck exiting and re-entering the vehicle.

Chuckles:
* We ate dinner the first night at the hotel restaurant.  There was an older man serving us (late 60's, early 70's-ish).  I ordered the seared salmon to which he heartily replied "Good for you!".  Michael ordered the pork chops.  He wasn't praised.  When he checked on us partway through the meal he commented on how much he likes both the items we'd ordered.  The salmon came with potatoes, tomatoes, green beans, and some sort of fancy olives.  He said that he likes the olives, but some people don't and it's okay if I don't eat them.  Good to know.  The meal was nicely portioned and I did enjoy the olives even, so I pretty much cleared my plate.  When he came back to bring us the check he broadly praised me with a "Good job!  You finished everything!".  I'm so proud of me for ordering, and eating my dinner!  I can only imagine how disappointed Michael must have been for not getting a pat on the head for his eating skillz.

* After dinner that first night we were kinda tired and didn't really want to go "out", but wanted to do something anyway.  We decided to watch a movie in our room... but we wanted movie popcorn.  Hmmmm...
So we looked up a nearby movie theater.  We went and Michael bought a bucket of popcorn.  Then we dumped it into the dry cleaning bag from the hotel and I went and got the free refill.  Problem solved!  We went back to the hotel and watched a movie while eating movie-theater popcorn :)

Aw, shoot:
*I was pretty horribly sick the first night actually.  Fortunately, due to the required density of King Sooper grocery stores, there was one not far away.  I drove over there during Michael's work the next morning for some medicine and some kefir.  After a morning nap I felt much better.  Phew!

Heel Click!:
*We visited the American Girl's Store at a nearby mall.  It was incredible!  I even got to bring home my very own miniature Samantha doll.

*During our mall wanderings (it was an easy, inexpensive-as-long-as-you-don't-buy-anything activity to do while chatting) we found some great prices on some dresses for the girls.  It's one of those things on "the list" of things we need to get sooner or later and they loved getting a present when we got home.  We also got some yummies from Godiva chocolate.  Most luxurious.

 Cinnabon!

*Friday afternoon we spent walking the 16th Street Mall.  Really it's a mile-long stretch of downtown with shops lining both sides and a walking only "street" (besides the free bus that shuttles you along the length).  There are restaurants, street musician, and souvenir shops and the weather was perfect for wandering the length.  We found some perfect presents for the girls here too!  A dream box for Lizzie (make a wish on it before bedtime) since she worries about nightmares, an amethyst chip necklace for Sabrina, and a fairy glass sculpture thing for Kate.

Various Others:
The food was just beautiful.

I want to eat this all over again.  Yum.

The Dodge Charger is a pretty awesome car to drive (Michael considers it at least a zillion steps above the 80's Chevy Celebrity he gets to drive these days)

The weather was amazing -- only the last morning while we were heading to the airport we had some frost on the windshield.

Pretty views from our 7th floor hotel room.

I am very thankful for a great vacation with my husband -- especially since it was free :P  It was definitely  time.